Paris...the Cape Town of France

Let me just say, this is one amazing city. Forget the stunning ocean vistas, great food, beautiful people, charming accent and rugged Table Mountain lording over it all. Cape Town has sidewalks, which means I didn't nearly run families of pedestrians off the road in my still shaky transition to left-hand driving.

Bhargavi has landed in a stylish, modern city that reminded me a lot of coastal California, especially La Jolla. Being the start of fall, it was a bit damp and chilly, so we couldn't get up to the top of Table Mountain, but still it was a great getaway for me before going off to the rougher conditions of Liberia this week (see post below). We ate like idiots (lots of snoek, a local fish), shopped for western music (Kanye and Coldplay are hard to come by in Nairobi), watched a good movie and got spa treatments at an oceanfront resort.

Cape Town isn't without its problems -- especially crime -- and it's hard to forget this was until only recently an outpost of apartheid. But we met some pretty cool locals, including a friend of Bhargavi's who founded the first pizza delivery chain in CT (let's just say he's doing well), and the ridiculously smooth Luvo, who is one of the country's youngest sommeliers at age 22.

Of course, Africa never lets you drop your guard. At the baggage claim this morning I found the outside pockets of my backpack had been emptied between the Cape Town airport and Nairobi, and not by me. I lost a pair of socks and malaria pills -- which are stupidly expensive -- but fortunately nothing worse. I can hear my parents now: Rule #1 of international travel, lock your luggage.

Never mind -- great city, good people, mostly perfect weekend. Pictures coming...